


The ShiKahr Institute for the Disordered Mind

by ffrindyddraig



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Mental Institutions, Vulcan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 09:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffrindyddraig/pseuds/ffrindyddraig
Summary: While waiting to visit Sybok, Spock meets another patient in his brother's hospital.





	The ShiKahr Institute for the Disordered Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I've read a couple of fics about Spock being in a mental institution in Earth thinking he was a vulcan, and I couldn't help but think what if they were on Vulcan and it's McCoy who thinks he's a human. This is set somewhere between Surak's time and Vulcan's inventing warp drive, so that a ten century gap you get to pick from.  
> I don't own Star Trek - let's face it, if I did I would at least be able to write fics with people in character.

The ShiKahr Institute for the Disordered Mind was located a day's walk away from the city, in the forge. Spock had always thought it looked out of place in the flat landscape. A big, white building with a towering chain link fence around it, but the placement was completely logical. Those who fought against Surak's ways - intentional or not - needed to be kept away from the general population, or their poisoned whispers  may convert those around back to days of war and destruction.

Spock, like the majority of the inhabitants in the ShiKar district, never thought he would step foot in it. He should of known better. His half-brother Sybok, while of Surak's blood, could not control his emotions, nor did he in fact try. A blind eye was turned for many years but once he joined the V'tosh Ka'tur their father could no longer ignore his firstborn's erratic ways.

While Sybok had been in the institute for half a year, this was Spock's first visit. In fact he would be his brother's first visit from anyone. Those who were undergoing healing could not have guests and it was only due to their father's high rank that Spock could come at all.

When his brother's doctor gave him a warning that it would not help Sybok to see Spock now, the younger insisted. He could not give a logical reason why, only that Sybok was a part of him, and he could not abandon him even if it would be better to. Part of him feared the familiarity he had shared with his brother growing up may of twisted him away from the teachings. He was still young, his mind still growing, and if a man of Surak's blood could be tempted how would a man born out of the mating cycle fare. He suspected their father only allowed him to come so he could see the fate of those who give into their lost primal urges. He was stronger than his family gave him credit for.

The doctor took him to the communal lounge, explaining his brother was in group meditation and he will be escorted to his room once he was done. "If you had informed us of your coming," she stated, "your time could of not been wasted." Then she disappeared, her duties still needing to be preformed.

The room held kal-toh sets and bookshelves, and it could of been a library if the walls were not white - the colour of healing. It was empty bar one man at the far end, body scrunched up in a chair in a position which could not be comfortable nor healthy, his nose deep in a medical journal.

Spock took his own seat, pressing his fingers together in a triangle in front of him, and began a shallow meditation. However the desired state eluded him, and for a moment he thought his mind had become too chaotic due to the visit before he found the real reason : the other man was tapping his foot against his chair in an irregular pattern. Spock had never come across an action such as this before, and took a moment to just observe it. He could not find a reason why one would do such a thing, just as he could not understand why he would sit as he did.

The man suddenly put down his book, aware of Spock's observations. The first think he noticed was the eyebrows, strangely straight and pulled together as he face pinched up. Next was his eyes, piercing blue, so bright he had to be from the Xir'tan continent. While the population was small, a larger percentage who could not follow Surak's way were from its descent.

"Who are you?" The man asked, voice harsh, his mouth turned down. Due to Spock's experience with emotional facial expressions from his brother he knew the man was 'annoyed', though Spock could not see why he would be so. Clearly he lacked a large enough sample size.

"I am Spock, son of Sarek." He informed him, making the man release a strange sound from his noise. Alarmed Spock rose to assist him, but the man waved his hand, the frown disappearing for a second and turning, the only way he could think of describing it, as lighter.

"I'm fine. I mean, what are you doing here?"

Spock sat again. "I am visiting my brother."

The man's eyebrow raised, and while many a vulcan did so, there was something about it that seemed unusual on his face. "Bullshit." Spock opened his mouth to ask what that word meant (slang maybe, from across the sea?) but the other man kept speaking. "Nobody visits anybody here."

Spock raised his own eyebrow. "I am."

Those blue eyes bored into him, and Spock felt a sensation he had not felt in years, one he felt while under his father's gaze as a child. He resisted the urge to move away. It seemed like his very katra was being gazed into. The man resettled himself so he was sitting on the chair correctly, and Spock caught a glimpse of his ears. They were flat, like a scalpel had been taken to them to cut off the points, leaving a straight top of light green scarring.

"I'm Leonard McCoy." He said, seemingly satisfied with whatever he saw in Spock's katra.  

Vulcan had settled on a worldwide naming system - it was, after all, logical - but many still had another traditional name which was used in clans. If the man was using his traditional name it was not one that followed any rules that Spock new of.

"LenurdMahKoi." He echoed. It came off his tongue clumsily. "A strange name."

He made that noise again, though this time Spock stayed seated. "Not where I come from."

"K'Lan-ne?" The largest city in Xir'Tan, where most of the population of the continent dwelt, the area too tectonically unstable for many to dare live further in land. LenurdMahKoi shook his head.

"No. Earth."

Spock's eyebrow rose once again. "I have not heard of this province."

The man, his face still locked on a frown, pointed upwards. "It's about sixteen light years that way."

Spock suddenly remembered he was sitting in an mental institution, and it covered more than just those who were emotional unbalanced. Men like LenurdMahKoi could not survive in the world outside the fence, even more dangerous in the short term to themselves and others. A rare case, Spock knew most illness of the mind can be fixed with a series of mind melds over a period of time, the irrationality built over with logic. He had not even aware that delusions like this could persist in his species for extended lengths of time, and yet they must, for the man sat in front of him and spoke of his home world in the sky. "You believe you are an alien?"   

LenurdMahKoi's mouth pulled down even further. "You're the alien." He grumbled.

"On the contrary, I belong to the main species of this planet. You are the alien."

His mouth suddenly flipped around, his eyes seemingly sparkling. Spock decided this was 'happy', a more extreme version of the facial expression his brother would have. For a second he was lost under the pure emotion coming of the man, before the reason it was so become known to him : he had not contradicted the man's madness. Maybe it was because the man did seem different, not just physically with those flat eyebrows and ears and expressions, but also the aura of his katra under his skin. It seemed _alien_ in a way Spock had never experienced before. Spock knew that did not make him one, he was most likely picking up on whatever made the man insane. But he did not open his mouth the correct the man's misunderstanding, unwilling to remove the blinding smile on LenurdMahKoi's face. The interest to explore new, and strange, things, Spock told himself.

"Better an alien than a damn vulcan." He said, mouth only pulling up more. Then it fell again, disappearing like tracks in the desert after a sand storm, like it had never been there in the first place. His eyes were looking at something over Spock's left shoulder. He followed the man's gaze, twisting around in his seat, and saw Sybok's doctor. She stopped in between the two of them.

"Sybok has finished his meditation. If you will follow me."

Spock stood up turning towards LenurdMahKoi, his finger's spreading into the Ta'al gesture. "Live long and prosper."

The patient put up his hand, but failed at doing the salute, all four fingers staying spread out in the air, like he was waiting to catch something. "Could never do that damn thing." He grumbled. Then he shot out his hand and took Spock's. For a second he was overcome with a rush of energy, passion, emotion not buried. One did not do that, touch someone they hardly knew, the sharing of minds to intimate, and in this case too overwhelming, for common practice. By the time his mind had stopped spinning, the hand was already released after being lifted up and down firmly once. It left him slightly breathless, Spock completely open and unprepared as the assault attacked him.

"That's how us human's say goodbye."

Spock could only nod weakly, the grin back on LenurdMahKoi's face saying he knew exactly what he just did.

"L'Nad." The doctor scowled, and the patient's face twisted around so it was replaced by the frown and somehow Spock knew it was just for show. "You do not touch people without their permission."

"Yes ma'am." He muttered, but as the doctor turned away, he rolled his eyes at Spock, like he too was in on this. Unable to process this strange man, Spock turned and followed the woman out.

And if he came while Sybok was in meditation the next week too, well he was sure there was a logical reason for that.

**Author's Note:**

> My research for this fic is actually longer than the fic because I am a nerd and I can't live with having any little fact wrong about Vulcan, of course I still played around with canon (or near canon) but at least I knew I was doing it.  
> ShiKahr is the 'capital' city of Vulcan which Spock grew up in and the forge is the desert it's on the outskirts of.  
> Sybok being of Surak's blood is because his mother is a princess and we do not know what this means in Vulcan culture, so I decided it just means they are ancestors of Surak.  
> Spock being born out of Pon-farr is me making up for the fact he is fully vulcan in this (obviously) but being caught between emotion and logic is a key point of his character, and I like to think Vulcan's who are born out of the mating cycle have it harder because they were produced out of want to mate rather than a need to.  
> V'tosh Ka'tur is a movement which combines logic and emotions, and I decided to make it a thing way before they all ran off in a spaceship in Enterprise era, which y'know, they never said it wasn't.  
> Kal-toh is the game Tuvok always plays in Voyager and I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that white was the colour of healing but I can't find it anywhere now so I might of just made it up.  
> Xir'Tan is an island continent of Vulcan, slightly larger than Australia, and is geologically unstable.


End file.
